try 43 new recipes

From the Momofuku cookbook, chicken liver and pork pate. I made it last night and let it set up in the fridge, and am now eating it for breakfast.

I had this pie at a pie shop on a trip to NYC last fall. One of my favorite desserts ever! They shared the recipe a few weeks ago, so I made some for pi day. It worked pretty well (though my pie crust was not as good as theirs…). Here’s the recipe: http://southbrooklynpost.com/food-drink/pie-mavens-share-recipe/

Salt, honey, custard and pie crust may sound like a strange combination but it’s actually very good!

Really simple, just bacon, chicken stock, and leeks. I think the best part was the crisp bacon saved for the garnish.

Another success from Soup Song! Recipe at http://www.soupsong.com/zh3.html

not really a recipe, but an experiment with different seasonings for salmon (I usually just use salt). This time I tried thyme, cardamom, white pepper, chipotle chile, and nutmeg.

Another one from Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone. I am an omnivore so I usually make soups with chicken stock, but this recipe has a way of making a quick stock with the beet and fennel stems and peels that works really well—it makes the soup taste more like beets and less like chicken.

Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone has several recipes that all start with roasting eggplant until collapsed, then pureeing with savory seasonings.

My friend Joanna had made homemade pop tarts, and I asked her for the recipe: http://sfappeal.com/food/2009/06/goodies-by-anna-homemade-pop-tarts.php. They were really fun to make; I don’t bake very much so semi-complicated recipes like this are always interesting.

Another one from Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini.

I’m always looking for stuff to do with sorrel because I keep getting it in my CSA and it’s a weird vegetable: it’s too sour to eat by itself, raw or cooked, and it turns mushy and slimy when cooked. In this recipe the sorrel is wilted by pouring boiling water over it, then pureed with avocado, garlic, and green onions to make a dip. I used both bunches of sorrel, but if anything I had too little sorrel and too much avocado.

I also made a version with avocado and cooked spinach, which is as good as spinach dip with sour cream and cheese.

There are three recipes here: http://www.whistlingtrainfarm.com/4.pumpkinpie.html including directions about how to prepare the fresh pumpkin and crust. A food processor makes the crust a lot easier. I had a lot of pumpkin so I used the proportions of pumpkin/eggs/milk/cream from the Molasses recipe, but with maple syrup instead of the molasses and honey.

I also used to precooked filling technique from the recipe at http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/65/Pumpkin-Pie. It made it a lot easier to taste the filling for the right amount of spice and sweetener.

Maybe this doesn’t really count as a recipe because I made it up, but I want to post it anyway.

Dice up 1 onion and 1 head of garlic. Melt 1 stick of butter and sauté the garlic and onion over medium heat (turn to low to keep warm when the onions are browned).

Meanwhile, cook about 2 pounds of potatoes until they’re really soft. I use the pressure cooker so it takes about 15 minutes, and by then the onions are done.

Dump the water out of the potato pot, and put the potatoes back in, and pour the butter and onion mixture on top. I don’t peel the potatoes. Peeling boiling hot potatoes is not fun.

Now mash! With a potato masher or whatever handy mashing implement. This is the fun part because a pile of potatoes and onions magically turns into mashed potatoes! Add salt to taste and mash it in.